Ex-Dolphins find it hard to say goodbye to football

Most football careers end quietly. Only superstars call tear-soaked press conferences to announce they are done. Players who are released often spend months waiting for that phone call from another team that never comes.

Then there are players who have a single moment when it becomes clear it's over.

For Ron Heller, an offensive tackle for the 1994 Dolphins, his career spanned 12 years, 172 games and 15 knee operations. Those last four years he spent in pain, sitting out practices during the week so he could strap on knee braces on Sundays. He wasn't the most talented guy in the locker room, but Heller was considered the most tenacious.

He had just played against the New York Jets on Oct. 22, 1995, and was back in the Dolphins' weight room the next day. He was in so much pain he couldn't do lower-body exercises. His shoulders hurt so bad he couldn't do upper-body exercises.

"A wave of emotion came over me and I thought, 'Oh my God, I'm done,' " Heller said. "The tough Tarzan attitude that I could play through anything just left me."

He decided it was time to repair his body. Two days later, he had operations on both knees. Within the next two weeks, he had surgeries on both shoulders. Heller said he feels great now — fishing, hiking and horseback riding in Montana, where he owns a 150-acre property.

Defensive tackle Craig Veasey was getting ready for training camp with the Houston Oilers in 1996 when he had his moment. The six-year pro was working out at a gym near his Houston home.

He was sitting on the edge of a bench press. His shoulder hurt. He was recovering from knee surgery he'd had a few months earlier. He looked out the gym's window and saw the heat waves rising from the asphalt. He knew what awaited him at training camp.

"It was like someone tapped me on the shoulder and said, 'That's enough,' " Veasey said. "I got up, took a shower, called my agent and said, 'I'm done.' "

In a way, Chuck Klingbeil's career ended in a gym, too. The undrafted nose tackle started 65 games for the Dolphins from 1991 to 1995, clogging up the middle. In 1996, he didn't make it through training camp, getting cut after he hurt his shoulder and refused a pay cut.

He wasn't ready to leave the game, though. He went back to his hometown of Houghton, Mich., to live with his mother and keep in shape for the next football team that called.

"I wanted to give it another shot," he said.

An avid powerlifter, Klingbeil could squat 700 pounds. One night after a workout, he woke up and vomited a little blood. He thought it was the cranberry juice he drank earlier.

A few hours later, he woke up again.

"I threw up red, pure, dark blood in a [waste]basket," he said. 'I told my mom and she said, 'We're going to the ER.'

"I threw up again and sort of laid back down and thought it was a lot of blood, a basket full of blood. My mom came to the staircase and said, 'We're going.' That's the last thing I remember."

Klingbeil said he had put such a strain on his body while training that pressure within his abdomen ripped a hole in his esophagus, what's known as a Mallory-Weiss tear. He needed five stitches. His dreams of returning to the football field were over.

"When you love something like that and you're part of it and all of a sudden it's done, it's hard," said Klingbeil, now an assistant coach at Michigan Tech, a school of about 7,000 in Houghton. "I miss it every day. I don't so much miss the practices, but you miss the guys and the bond you have with them. I find it frustrating that I'm on the sidelines coaching and I can't put on a helmet and make something happen."

"I'm 46 and still, in the back of my head, I think I can play for a series."

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